The University of Birmingham is using its Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) funding to overhaul how it recruits, trains, and supports PhD students in engineering and physical sciences. This matters because the UK needs more skilled researchers—particularly from underrepresented groups—to fill academic and industrial roles. The university has identified gaps: too few female and Black and minority ethnic (BME) research students, and weak record-keeping on how DTP flexibility is actually used. Without systematic change, these problems persist. If the university succeeds, it will produce a more diverse pipeline of highly trained scientists and engineers ready for careers in research and industry. A new £40 million Collaborative Teaching Laboratory opening in 2018 will anchor outreach to school pupils, further education colleges, and university students, aiming to broaden participation. The university is also tightening its monitoring of DTP allocations, linking them to strategic priorities like supporting new academic hires and major grant proposals. This is primarily an institutional capacity-building project, not fundamental science. Its impact will be measured in the quality and diversity of the PhD graduates it produces, not in a specific technological breakthrough.
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The University of Birmingham takes full advantage of the opportunities offered by the Doctoral Training Partnerships and invests them strategically to enhance research quality, increase research income and subsequent impact, and prepare high quality individuals for academic and industrial workplaces. The University is currently refreshing its Strategic Framework and this will be followed by a revision of the Framework for each of the Colleges. In addition, in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS) a new Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer is currently in the process of being appointed, providing further opportunities for review of our systems and methodology. Over-arching responsibility for the management of the DTP sits with the College Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer (DoRKT), who Chairs the College Graduate Committee. The latter monitors the various aspects of DTPs (and related schemes), though one area that has been identified as needing improvement is in the recording of DTP flexibilities. Whilst there is anecdotal evidence that the University is taking full advantage of these opportunities, this aspect will be monitored much more rigorously in future as part of the overall refresh of our systems. DTPs are allocated strategically around all the Schools in EPS based on assisting new academic appointees; the quality of the research projects submitted; the quality of the student; a desire to support the submission of major research proposals; and supporting strategic research areas. With the University being at the heart of a number of recent and significant Government-backed investments and projects, the latter has increased in importance. The goal is to get the balance right between driving through new initiatives and supporting existing success in terms of distributing the resources available. The University has excellent systems in place for monitoring equality and diversity across all of its staff and students. An analysis of the results indicates that there is room for improvement in the number of female and BME research students, however, we are currently limited in terms of the supply available to us. The University is working hard on improving these areas and in 2018 it will open a new £40M Collaborative Teaching Laboratory (CTL) for its Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) students. One feature of this will comprise a robust outreach programme that will encompass school pupils (not least through the University's new University School), FE Colleges and university students. The aim will be to demonstrate the influence of science and engineering on our lives and the health, economy and sustainability of our nation and encourage more people from all backgrounds, ethnicities and genders to engage with these vital subjects. The University's annual Development Needs Analysis (DNA) process ensures that all our PGRs are able to benefit from an individual programme of training that meets their specific transferable and discipline specific needs from a menu of options provided by the School, College, central training partners such as Library Services, Careers Network, the Centre for Learning & Academic Development and the University Graduate School (UGS). DTP student training is orientated around the development of core, advanced and transferable knowledge, skills and understanding, and includes a focus on the impact of research so that that our DTP postgraduate researchers (PGR) are fully prepared for their studies and future careers. There is also significant opportunity for our PGRs to become involved with public engagement.
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